Pakistan:
Music stores are being rebuilt in Swat valley
In 2008, the Taliban militants in the north-western Pakistani valley of Swat imposed a ban on all forms of artistic expression. Now that the Taliban are no longer a force in Swat, culture has made a comeback, reported Shaheen Buneri to BBC South Asia.
Cultural life of the Yousafzai Pashtuns is reviving in Swat valley of Pakistan. In his report for BBC, among others, Pakistani journalist Shaheen Buneri did an interview with the owner of a music CD store in Mingora, 38-year-old Usman Khyali. His shop was blown up by the militants, but he has now rebuilt, and music CDs are again being handed over the counter.
It will take a long time for Swat’s musical culture to recover from the Taliban’s crackdown on music, reported Shaheen Buneri from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
In the sixteenth attack on Sufi shrines in two years, Taliban suicide bombers killed 49 and injured 93 Sufi devotees while they were doing music and meditation
The bombings of CD markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in beginning of February 2011 suggests that militants are again threatening the entertainment industry
On 26 November 2010, unidentified militants kidnapped Musharraf Bengash, a Pashtun singer from the Mir Ali area in North Waziristan. Later, a jirga negotiated his release
After a military operation against the religious extremists, artists are now returning back to Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, reported The Express Tribune.
A group of religious extremists threatened Asad Qazilbash, a renowned sarood player in Islamabad, to stop giving lessons and remove the signboard for his music school
Rock star Salman Ahmad desribes his encounters with angry mullahs and oppressive dictators who wanted all music to be banned from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Five people were injured and 10 shops damaged in a bomb blast on 28 January 2010 in a music and video market in the small town of Jand in Pakistan's Punjab province
A concert with the exiled Pakistani singer Haroon Bacha on 9 December 2009 marks the start of 'Impossible Music Sessions' in New York showcasing banned music
